A river ripper's trip around the world.

Surf in Honolua bay, freestyle in Kihei and wave sailing in Kanaha

Before I begin, I want to apologize to anyone who is reading my blog for the long wait since the last post. At least, this one is going to be a big one.

First of all, I discovered, last week, one of the most amazing waves on the island of Maui, Honolua bay. It’s a spot on the west side of the North shore. Because it is on the other side of the volcano, you need to drive all the way to the south, and go all the way around to Lahaina, driving for about an hour. The drive is well worth it. When it works, this glassy pointbreak peels off to the right for a few hundred meters, barreling in some sections. I have to admit, the surf was a little big (double overhead) for me, and I was intimidated. I did go in the water, but played it safe. I still manage to catch the best waves of my life, without a doubt. I also got to admire some real surfers having fun on this liquid playground, truly making the most out of the wave, going vertical on every turn and smacking the lip as hard as possible, occasionally throwing an aerial or even a 360. The young guns were particularly impressive, and they were charging surprisingly hard for their size, obviously hungry for some good surf. Pictures coming soon.

Yesterday, some very strong north-west wind were supposed to blow all over the north shore. Henceforth, we showed up early at Kanaha, since we hadn’t had a real trade winds day in over 2 months, only to find a very light breeze, hardly enough to shlog out and make it passed the white water, so we had nothing to do but wait for the wind. After a few hours of twiddling our thumbs, we decided to go check out Kihei, on the south side of the island, where is usually windier, but where you rarely have any waves, with the hope of doing a little bit of freestyle. Indeed, we found plenty of wind and managed to get ourselves a good freestyle session. While Loic was busy throwing burners and air funnels, I was working on my spin-loops (flat water forward loops) and air jibes (180 rotation in the air, sliding backwards). It wasn’t wave sailing, but it definitely felt good to be back on the water.

And now, the real story. Today, we finally got the epic day at Kanaha we so desperately awaited. Simply driving in the parking lot, my heartbeat accelerated as it was obvious a nice 20 knot trade wind was blowing consistently over nice logo- to mast-high waves. After a speedy rigging, we rushed on the water. I’m proud to say my wave riding hasn’t gone down despite the time off the water, in fact in probably even got better, because of all the surfing. I was feeling very confident in the bottom turn, pushing as hard as I could on my front foot, engaging my whole body and laying down the sail way more than I used to, and then following by kicking the lip (the breaking part of the wave) as hard as I could. I felt very good concerning my timing (i.e. trying to be hitting the top of the wave as close as possible to breaking part, without hitting white water) and my flow (trying to connect the turns as fluidly as possible), as I felt like I was coming out of my top turn with a lot of speed. On the other hand, I definitely need to get back into jumping, as I was definitely not feeling confident enough to go high and I was nowhere near a controlled landing. Anyways, the surf was definitely on my mind during today’s session, which ended on a bittersweet note. During the last few hours I was on the water, the wind had started getting up a lot, making my surf more and more precarious. On my last bottom turn, I engaged with a lot of speed, coming very vertical on the wave, and pushed very hard on the back foot, and everything fell apart. Literally. Somehow, my mast foot (the universal joint that connects the rig to the board) broke completely, leaving me in the water, holding my rig in one hand and my board in the other, with waves breaking on my head. Luckily, a few good samaritans stopped by and saved my skin, one dragged me with my board, while the other, who happened to be Francisco Goya, one of my windsurfing idols, carried my sail back to the beach. Special thanks to Mr. Goya, who even took the time to bring my sail up on the beach and put sand on it to make sure it would fly away. It’s definitely not every pro that would’ve done the same. It’s amazing to see someone as stoked as him, who’s just happy to be on the water and actually willing to help other people experience this amazing sport.

Unfortunately, the forecast doesn’t look so good until I leave for New Zealand, on January 29th, except for a kona wind on saturday and maybe one or two trade days during the week.